Loss of my father

[Heatherm31]

Back in November of 2019 I went to go wake my father who had not woken. He had been battling congestive heart failure along with diabetes and stage 3 kidney failure. I knew it was coming but I thought I had just 1 more holiday season with him. It was 2 days after my 29th birthday. His 76th birthday is tomorrow and I really have been struggling this past week. Having a hard time getting out of bed and just doing my daily things along with work. I sit back and wonder why did I have to be the one to find him. I’m not strong enough for this. My mother had passed many years before when I was 14. And I don’t have a relationship with my only brother who is older. So I’m really struggling and feeling alone. What are some things that help you on your rough nights and days that I might be able to try? 

[reader]

Dear Heather:

I’m so sorry for your loss. I often feel this way too. Please know that different things work for different people. For myself I’ve tried a variety of things to distract myself. Everything from going shopping or to the grocery store to watching YouTube videos and talking with friends.

 Like you I really struggle around my father’s birthday and anniversary. For those days I tried to bring him flowers or a coffee to his gravesite. I know others have suggested writing a letter and sending it up in a helium balloon. Or having some of your father’s favourite foods or drinks and going to some of his favourite places.

Please know you are not alone. And we are here with you. And you can talk things out with us. Thinking of you.

[Heatherm31]

Thank you so much for the kind words and some suggestions on what i could try to do. I really appreciate it

[Ronni_W]

On 8/24/2022 at 7:53 PM, Heatherm31 said:

[...]. Having a hard time getting out of bed and just doing my daily things along with work. [,,,] I’m not strong enough for this. [...] I’m really struggling and feeling alone. What are some things that help you on your rough nights and days that I might be able to try? 

Dear Heatherm31,

Hugs to you. My current circumstances are also such that I do feel very much alone on this planet. (For me, it's my Dad who died just after my 13th birthday, and my Mom transitioned in June 2021.) I have needed to be the one to reach out to my only brother -- but only able to do this after I set aside my own sense of feeling let down and disappointed by him. (In truth, it turns out that he was also feeling let down and disappointed by me. So we had to take our time and use our patience and compassion to deal with all of that.)

I also can't find any inspiration or motivation to do other than the bare minimum to keep myself alive and 'income-generating' on this planet.

For me, I figured that meditation, yoga and crap like that would end up being able to help me. But...and I know that this is going to, or is extremely likely to, sound super-weird. Sudoku. I used to think that it is a 'mathematics' puzzle, but it's not. For sure, I've never considered myself to have a 'mathematics brain'. I haven't checked, but apparently there are YouTube tutorials, tips and tricks, etc. (I've been getting Zoom  'tutorials/tutoring' through my local grief-support organization.)

Anyway, Point is, for me, when I just want or need to "get away from it all", then I grab my Sudoku puzzle book (purchased from local 'dollar' store), and the next thing I know, it's 3AM in the morning!     I also just started working with an 'art as therapy' counselor -- found for-free through my local library -- which, I am also NOT a creative artist, but doodling and colouring-in turns out to be, for me, also quite relaxing and helpful when I want to stop being and feeling so 'immersed' in my grief or with my loss.

I also don't feel "strong enough for this" -- but, then what is the antidote to not feeling strong enough "for this"? So, Sudoku, yoga, marathon training, rug hooking, needlepoint, kick-boxing, volunteering at an animal shelter or as an English-as-second-language buddy, learning tennis or pickle ball, joining the library's 'social circle' or book club...whatever it takes, Heatherm31. At least, these are the types of things that I'm looking into and exploring and experimenting with, to get me through all of my own rough days and rough nights. Of which I do have many. Too many, and would not even wish it on my worst enemy.

Love and hugs,   Ronni

[hrcollins]

I recommend reading "Bearing the Unbearable" by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore. She provides a lot of examples of things to do to go through the grieving experience, rather than avoiding it.

There is also a meditation exercise - I can't locate the name of the practice (I apologize!) - in which you focus on the unpleasant situation, breathe through it, use different senses to describe it. For example, if it were a color, what color would it be? If had a texture, what texture would it be? Soft, spikey, rough, sandy? If it had a smell, what smell would it be? So on and so forth. You aren't trying to get rid of the experience, but the act of thinking about it has a way to make the situation "smaller".

I'm sorry for your losses. I lost my dad 15 years ago at age 22. His ashes are still in the box they were shipped to me in, and I still can't bear to open it and see his body reduced. I want to give his remains a respectable location, or be free in the environment, but I struggle so much with opening this dang box! I feel I live well with this grief, but I struggle with the physical aspect of losing my father. Didn't mean to derail the post... my fingers just had to share that bit of information.

Positive thoughts your way. 💚

[Heatherm31]

@Ronni_W 
Thank you so much for those kind words, i have started to color or ive been working on those Diamond paintings that seem to be helping a little. i found a grief group that im going to try.  Sorry for everything you have gone through and are going through. Thank you for the advise 

[Heatherm31]

Thank you @hrcollins I will check that book out ❤️ I am so sorry for your loss. The right time and place will come to mind when the time is right to introduce him to the world again. ❤️ Positive thoughts your way as well!

 

[Ronni_W]

hrcollins and Heatherm31, I'm thinking of you both, and sending hugs and all 'cosmic vibes' for comfort, strength, support and insights that will help.

I do whole-heartedly agree that it is not healing or constructive to just go through life always trying to avoid the sensations, feelings and emotions that are socially/culturally held as 'dark' or 'negative' or difficult. But, on the other side of that, we don't need to always be immersed in them, either.

Sometimes, it is just self-loving, self-caring, self-compassionate to just give our own self the same 'emotional break' that we would offer or suggest to our friends and loved ones to take, on an as-needed basis and/or every so once in a while.

It may not be the exact same, but the book 'Focusing' by Gendlin, offers what sounds like a similar method/technique for 'inner exploration' -- and can be self-applied -- which, if I remember accurately, also uses shapes and colours to help us go gently deeper into what we're feeling/experiencing.     The other book that I'm finding useful for this is type of gentle self-exploration of my grief and loss and sadness is, 'Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair' by Miriam Greenspan. My copy is from 2003, so it may not be too readily available.

hrcollins, I can so identify with how you feel about your dad's physical ashes. I have the same about my Hubby's clothing and tools. I know that it's not at all the same kind of 'physical substance', but I tend to think that our feelings of attachment to these physical things that still connect us with our loved one, are the same(?)         Not necessarily exactly the same, but kind of(?)     For me, I'm just dealing with these 'physicals' that I have here on this side, as best as I can emotionally manage at any given time.     Ah! Okay. It comes to me to type that, at the time, I gave my Hubby's ashes to his sons, and, last year when our mom died, my mom's, to my brother. I have no idea what's happened to either, and no pressing desire to ask my brother what he did with it. (I'm no longer in touch with my step-sons, so will never know about that -- and, I'm also okay not knowing.)

Hhmmm...I'll need to go 'inside' and, after that, then journal about this. I *think* that I already know what'll come out of it...but...I never know what I don't yet know, right? 😄.

All of my very best to you both, and to one and all.   Ronni